University of Washington
Teacher Education Program
Professional Growth Plan
Professional Certificate is the advanced level regular certificate. Most applicants receive
this certificate after holding a residency certificate and working as an educator in
Washington State. This plan should be developed in conjunction with the 3 standards and
12 criteria of Professional Certification: Effective Teaching, Professional Development, and
Professional Contributions, as defined in WAC 181-78A-540.
As part of your Teacher Education Program, it is required that you are informed about
professional certification and draft a professional growth plan. This activity will walk you
through that process. A template is provided to use in drafting your plan.
Tasks
Professional Growth Self-Assessment1
Using information related to your experiences in your teacher education program,
including your student teaching, relevant courses, mentor feedback and TPA, reflect on
Professional Certification Standard I criteria (See Appendix A) and the related
descriptions of practice to choose an area of focus for your professional growth.
Consider the following questions as you choose an area of focus for this years
professional growth.
o What are my greatest successes?
o What are the areas of my students learning that I need to improve?
o What are work related challenges that I think about all the time?
o What resources/experiences related to my own learning and professional
development might help me address these?
Professional Development Plan1
Use the following template to complete a Draft Professional Growth Plan and develop a
plan for how you might address the areas of focus.
Modified from Washington Professional Certificate Portfolio of Evidence Assessment: Handbook for Participation
in Pilot Testing.
1
Professional Growth Plan
Name: Allie Bean
Date: 23 April 2015
IslandWood Education for Environment and Community Graduate
Program; Advanced Instructional Strategies
Standard/Criterion Ive chosen from Danielsons Framework for Teaching
to apply to School Overnight Program curriculum:
Step 1 - Needs Assessment and Goal Selection
A. Area of Focus
From the self-assessment task above and review of Standard 1 (Appendix A), identify the area of
professional growth relevant to your teaching that will focus your professional growth activities and increase
your capacity to impact student learning.
Criterion 2: 3b: Demonstrating effective teaching practices: Using questioning and discussion techniques
B. Rationale
What will your students be able to do as a result of your professional development that they are not able to do
now?
STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO COMFORTABLY ENGAGE EACH OTHER IN DISCUSSION AND FURTHER
THEIR CRITICAL THINKING WITH INTENTIONAL INSTRUCTOR QUESTIONS AND STUDENT DEBATE.
BY ASKING SPECIFIC QUESTIONS AIMED TOWARD THE LEARNING GOAL. BECAUSE THE
CONVERSATION IS STUDENT-DRIVEN, MOST STUDENTS WILL BE ENGAGED IN THE DISCUSSION.
Step 2 Targets for New Learning
What new skills and knowledge will you need to build your capacity in this area? Be specific.
BACKWARDS PLANNING: I ALWAYS HAVE A SPECIFIC LEARNING GOAL IN MIND FOR MY STUDENTS AS
I TEACH A LESSON, BUT I HAVENT ALWAYS TAKEN THE TIME TO FORMULATE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS
THAT ANTICIPATE A RANGE OF STUDENT REACTIONS. I NEED TO DEVELOP QUESTIONS THAT ARE
SPECIFIC AND TARGETED TOWARD MY LEARNING GOALS AND ALLOW ME TO ADAPT MY LEARNING
GOALS TO MATCH MY STUDENTS NEEDS.
STUDENT-LED DISCUSSIONS: I ALWAYS INTEND TO HAVE STUDENTS ENGAGE EACH OTHER IN
DISCUSSION, NOT JUST MYSELF, BUT I OFTEN FORGET TO DO THIS, DEPENDING ON THE ACTIVITY. I
WILL WRITE DOWN, WITH MY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, HOW I WANT TO CARRY OUT THE LESSON: PAIR
SHARE/STUDENTS CALLING ON EACH OTHER/SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION AND PRESENTATION.
Step 3 - Professional Development Plan
What specific growth activities will you engage in to achieve your identified learning target? For example,
continuing education course, revisiting a course text, continued reading, visiting another classroom, attend
professional development session(s), participate in a study group of professional learning community).
ACTIVITIES
RESOURCES NEEDED
WRITE OUT LEARNING GOALS
AD ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS
ORGANIZED NOTE PAD
WEATHER-RESISTANT PEN
WRITE POSSIBLE OUTCOMES,
BOTH DESIREABLE AND
UNDESIREABLE, AND
ANTICIPATED STUDENT
CHALLENGES
ACCESS TO MENTORS, PEERS,
OTHERS TO BOUNCE IDEAS
OFF OF
GET TO KNOW STUDENTS
INDIVIDUALLY DURING THE
WEEK/TIME FRAME
TIME, ENERGY, LONG WALKS
HAVE STUDENTS PAIR AND
SHARE FREQUENTLY
TIME
CREATE TIME FOR STUDENT-LED
DISCUSSIONS BY HAVING
STUDENTS CALL ON
EACHOTHER
DISCUSSIONS
QUESTIONS I HAVE
Does referencing notes
frequently create a sense of
unpreparedness/unprofessionali
sm to students and peers?
WHAT ARE SOME TIPS/TRICKS
TO ENGAGE STUDENTS AND
MAINTAIN
PERSONAL/EMOTIONAL
SPACE?
IF MY PRIORITY IS TO CREATE
AN AUTHENTICALLY
STUDENT-DRIVEN
DISCUSSION, HOW DO I TAKE
CONTOL BACK IF/WHEN THE
CONVERSATION TURNS
WHERE I DO NOT ANTICIPATE?
EMPOWER STUDENTS TO
ENGAGE EACH OTHER AND
VIEW THEIR PEERS AS
RESOURCES
TEAM-BUILDING,
INTENTIONAL QUESTIONING,
TIME
Step 4 - Evidence Proposed
What evidence will you gather to demonstrate the impact of your professional growth on student learning as
defined in step 1?
I will gather feedback from families as to what they feel is most helpful for their student and what
is being most effectively implemented and what I can do to best ensure that I am consistently
supporting students in reaching their goals. I will also conduct conferences with students to help
them articulate their strengths and areas they are still working on. I will also be able to observe and
record students working collaboratively to support each others learning needs. I will also be able to
conference with other teachers and school staff as to their observation of the effectiveness of
collaboration as a viable strategy to help best meet students' needs. I will also work with
community members outside of the student's home and school life to assess the success of the
student's progress. Additionally, I will use research-based strategies to observe and record data that
lends itself to assessing student progress.
Step 5 Evidence Presented
List the evidence of positive impact on student learning as gathered in step 4 (ie., artifacts of student work,
video of student learning, anecdotal records of student learning, observational assessment records). This
evidence will be submitted with the Capstone Project.
IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO COMPLETE THIS PORTION FOR THIS ACTIVITY!
Make sure that you have parent permission for videotape documentation and/or that you remove names
from student artifacts.
Professional Development Plan Reflection
Step 6 Reflection/Implications
